60 explorations and reflections on branding, design, copywriting, experience and entrepreneurship

What insights do you get from talking to industry professionals about branding, design, copywriting, and entrepreneurship? The author of this article shares his experiences during his active time in the industry, and summarizes some experiences for your reference, hoping to inspire you.

I have little experience, let alone experience and suggestions. These are just what I have encountered, seen and thought about in projects, books and different founders. They are about branding, design, copywriting, experience and entrepreneurship.

1. Brand

01

Building a brand is doing research and development, and upgrading a brand is doing upgraded research and development, all aspects of research and development. This will make it easier to understand why brands take a long time to take effect, have high costs, and have a high chance of failure.

02

As a 99% stand-alone game brand, let's not talk about the originality related to Zelda. It is indeed a stand-alone game, but after you finish playing the game, its extended content and "Miyoushe", "Bilibili", "Weibo" and other content and interactive operations make you feel like this is an online game. You quit the game, but you don't quit the game. Genshin Impact "Goddess Splits the View" is recommended for appreciation, and B Station has 4K.

03

Big data is not that useful. If big data is really that useful, then there are companies with the most data, and they don’t show that they are the best in business. Because data itself is the behavioral outcome after being induced, not the original behavioral result. The more data there is, the more inducements there are, and the inducement itself will blur the answer. Humans are also very complex animals, and they change a lot. So only the initial starting point can determine this matter. It is unimaginable that the smartest few people in a company of 200 to 300 people have to hold 1-2 meetings every day on ROI, and repeatedly analyze and test the data of several selling points. It is impossible to win in this marathon of branding.

——Ma Wenfei, founder of PIDAN.

04

Brands tend to create emotional value, and businesses tend to create rational value.

——Wang Xiaodong, CEO of GENTLEMONSTER China.

05

Nike had a 3-4 year history, and the founder solved his anxiety by running every day because he had no money before going public.

06

What is good brand content? It is when you read the end and then remember that this is actually the content of this brand! The favorability has increased a little bit. It is not deliberate, but it achieves the effect that cannot be achieved by deliberate efforts; it is when you read it and think in your heart, "This is actually free?"

07

MUJI has done a lot of business integration and store type updates in China in 2021. When I saw this store in Shanghai Sun Palace from a distance, I wanted to go in and take a look. After entering and looking at its display design, I could look at it for a while.

08

The upgraded space of Chow Tai Fook Shanghai Qianshu Store attracted some new users, but the old products and services immediately discouraged these new users. It is the same for many of our time-honored brands. They know that their users have changed and are anxious, but if they do not adjust their internal thinking and working methods, it is impossible to regain new life by relying on external forces. Time-honored brands are recommended to learn from the Japanese brand Toraya.

09

To judge whether a store has become a "lifestyle", you can see how many people are willing to sit there comfortably, or stroll and stay in front of the store. It's not just stores, it's the same with Taobao. In the past, Taobao was also a purposeful consumption. Now many people browse Taobao before going to bed at night, browse for fun, and then place orders, but it's unlikely to be the case when you open JD.com.

10

No matter how confident a brand is, it needs to do blind product testing every once in a while. Basically, 99% of the customers I meet think their products are good, and they just lack branding. But users are objective, and there are many things that no one can say for them. Don't blindly believe in yourself.

11

FamilyMart is a small classroom and a miniature market economy. It covers consumer psychology, promotional methods, display design, new product launches, experience design, packaging design, copywriting, and product combinations. If you pay attention, you will find something new every time you go there. It is worth studying and researching for all practitioners in the consumer industry, especially talking to the store manager. He will tell you why the beverage cabinet should be placed at the back.

12

All the brands, packaging, and spaces that look "comfortable" have put in a lot of effort and cost behind them that far exceeds your imagination. Some of Heytea's concept stores cost 2 to 4 million yuan to renovate, and the 130-square-meter flagship store of Ango Ruosheng Xinsuo, owned by Su Ran, cost 2 million yuan to renovate. Almost every package of the new skincare brand The Beast from the East requires a mold.

13

For people who don’t have a nightlife, if you want to create a nightlife brand, you can only experience it by going to each restaurant one by one, or even sitting on the roadside and having a few drinks, to get a little bit of the experience.

14

Some entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs, not brand people. The difference lies in how much time they spend on users.

15

There are two things about Zhong Xue Gao that left a deep impression on me. In the early days, because it was difficult to communicate directly with consumers about the product, pop-up stores were used to break the ice for the brand, and more than 30 pop-up stores were held in half a year. Zhong Xue Gao once had a pop-up store in Shanghai, which was immediately opened for activities the next day. After setting it up at night, it was found that the door head pressed down the blind path, so it was finally decided to dismantle it, adjust the activity time, coordinate with multiple parties, and redo the door head before opening the activity. When you can't judge whether to do something, go back to the original brand vision and value proposition to think.

16

Those who have intentions usually fall into clichés, while those who have intentions will let things take their natural course.

——Wu Jun, founder of Sandunban.

17

Brand is a very subjective thing, and this subjectivity is the source of conflicts between brands and creative service providers.

18

In today's brand building, uniqueness is more important than completeness and systematicity.

19

The moat of a brand's unique expression is very deep. Design thinking can help a brand find a unique way of expression, but strategic thinking cannot. Don't confuse the two types of thinking.

20

Every brand should represent at least one unique value. Aesthetics, category, efficiency, culture, experience, it can be a combination of several values, but you must find them.

twenty one

The answers that cannot be found in the office are either already in the book or at the user's site.

twenty two

In fact, no successful brand is created by analyzing brand marketing.

twenty three

For a brand with many SKUs, removing some long-tail SKUs may increase its sales.

twenty four

If a founder or partner believes that brand is important and loves his or her own brand but is not an expert, it is best not to let it go even if a third-party agency or marketing department is hired. This will not really make the brand better, but will only make you less knowledgeable about brands. This will result in you not understanding why other brands and store experiences are done in this way, and you will want to wait for others to tell you.

But in fact, you are also a user, you also buy things, you know why it is good, why you want to buy it, you have a feeling, don't let this feeling be lost when it comes to your own brand. Even if the founder or partner does not participate in the execution, the physical feeling and decision-making thinking of the entire brand building process are extremely important. The brand is the child incubated by the founding team itself, and no one can replace you.

25

What is important is not the carrier but the expression behind it. Many brands don’t have what they want to express.

26

Almost all Lanzhou beef noodles brands have the same meaning: I am the most authentic...

27

If we regard a brand as a work of art, a good work is one that the audience can participate in. For example, a poem, a painting, or a piece of music is only half completed after it is created, and the other half requires the participation of the audience. What the audience participates in is their own imagination and perception, which leads to different interpretations and perspectives, and the work is reborn and extended by the audience.

So those works that do not leave room for the audience's imagination, such as shoddy TV dramas and movies, and works that say everything, where the audience cannot develop their own imagination, cannot experience rich perceptions, and cannot be inspired... cannot be considered good works.

2. Design, copywriting and experience

28

When we are doing brand creativity and design, we also worry about whether it is subjective and not logical enough, but the brand itself is subjective. Why does Sandunban always say "planet"? Because the founder likes Star Wars and puts it into the brand when he thinks it is suitable. Many brands are afraid to make decisions when they should be subjective. Absolute subjectivity is actually a kind of objectivity, because subjectivity becomes an objective fact after a long time, such as religion.

29

Among the ten brands that promote Chinese fashion, about half of them do not like Chinese fashion themselves and have never even studied traditional Chinese culture.

30

The % symbol of ARABICA is a coffee branch with two coffee berries. You may think that the design consideration of the brand symbol at that time was just your imagination.

31

Large areas of black can sometimes be very eye-catching.

32

After many years, 21Cake still has the same SKU, square shape, copywriting, visuals, and experience. I buy it every year.

33

The appearance of a product is beautiful and you like it at first sight. This is an emotional experience. The interaction of the product is friendly and intimate, which is the long-term value of the user. Another experience is the inner emotional experience, which touches people's hearts. Good looks are the first level, good usability is the second level, and inner experience is the third level.

34

Design and strategy are equal in relationship. Both strategy and design can solve problems and create new value. However, in most domestic companies, strategy controls design, and design becomes a tool to meet strategic needs.

35

From a sociological perspective, when it comes to aesthetics, the majority is subject to the minority. When a trend first appears, it is often a niche one. After being packaged by salespeople and presented by experts, it is then continued to ferment by key opinion leaders before finally becoming a popular trend. Most of the style trends in the world start out as niche ones.

36

If we regard a brand as a work of art, a good work is one that the audience can participate in. For example, a poem, a painting, or a piece of music is only half completed after it is created, and the other half requires the participation of the audience. What the audience participates in is their own imagination and perception, which leads to different interpretations and perspectives, and the work is reborn and extended by the audience.

37

Lady Wei taught Wang Xizhi how to write:

“Horizontal” is like a cloud array thousands of miles away, faintly visible but actually tangible.

The "dot" is like a rock falling from a high peak, it bumps and actually collapses.

"撇" is like cutting off a rhinoceros or an elephant.

"Zhe" is like a crossbow with a hundred pounds of force.

"Vertical" is like a thousand-year-old withered vine.

"Na" is like the crashing waves and thunder.

The "horizontal hook" is like the joints of a strong crossbow.

38

Just as important as brand vision is brand language. Brand language is not exactly the same as advertising copy. Unfortunately, there are too few courses that teach brand language.

39

The most tiring part of swimming is when you get out of the water. When you are in the water, you feel the water environment and the resistance to moving forward more, which reduces the feeling of tiredness. Maybe when people are immersed in the experience, they tend to ignore some changes, such as when watching a movie in a cinema, they don't feel back pain from sitting for a long time.

40

There is nothing fancy about user experience. It is just a matter of spending time and effort on small things that others may not even notice.

41

A wonderful community lifestyle, Shanghai’s “15-minute community life circle”.

42

It is rare to see expression purely through words and sounds at an exhibition. The imaginative space and direct sense of power created by words are not inferior to other new media arts.

43

I thought back to the best copywriting I saw last year, but I couldn’t come up with any sentences, and neither could my colleagues. Why?

44

A brand can only have one brand and design consultant. Don’t trust both of them half-heartedly. If you have Yu, why do you have Liang?

45

When the copy is strong, use more copy; when the visual is strong, use more visual.

46

Not all brands need a slogan.

3. Entrepreneurship

47

A company needs to have two businesses: one is the business that can make money even if the sky falls, and the other is the business that realizes the company's value. ——Liu Run

48

It seems that I am not a good entrepreneur. I haven’t found the business that can make money even if the sky falls.

49

Reducing the chances of a team making many low-level mistakes can significantly improve efficiency.

50

Many problems arise from not making things clear at the beginning, especially in team and business communications.

51

The value of an enterprise lies in creating users. The standard for creating users is not to attract new users, but the length of time the enterprise is connected with consumers. The longer the time connected with consumers, the more powerful the enterprise is.

52

If you choose a category with high trust and high decision-making cost as your entry point, it will be relatively easy to expand into other categories later, but it will be very difficult to expand into other categories later. For example, if you are a pet food brand, it is relatively easy to expand into pet supplies, but it is difficult to expand into food from supplies. Ingestibles > Non-ingestibles.

53

The most profound feeling I have from these years of entrepreneurship is that no one is good at everything. When you use your own weak areas to deal with things, you will definitely pay the tuition. Yao Xiaoyan and I are not good at management, and we pay the tuition for this every year. There is no other way to solve this problem, either you become good at it yourself, or you have a partner who is good at it.

54

For entrepreneurs who are preparing to invest in the consumer industry, one thing is very important: Is the product you want to make what users need? Is it of real value? Whenever a field is hot, there will be a large number of new products that are pseudo-demands, or the entrepreneurs themselves are not clear about who they want to sell the product to, so be cautious when starting a business.

55

After chatting with the founder of a Thai food brand, he went to H&H in the morning and came to Mushan in the afternoon. After the chat, he said to me: Each generation serves the next generation, and each generation does business for the next generation.

56

The best cooperation between Party A and Party B is that neither party needs to guess the other's preferences and ideas. Instead, they use their respective expertise and energy to create works and value for users for the same goal.

57

Whether it is a large company or a small company, the founder should never lose his judgment and sensitivity to the business, which means that even if you are busy, you still need to spend some time doing specific business. If you don't do it, you can't give proper guidance to your subordinates. Moreover, if you don't set an example, you can't mobilize the enthusiasm of your subordinates.

58

The most difficult thing to communicate is that you think something is important, but others think it is not important.

59

It’s not easy for any brand to open a store. They have to pay rent offline and review rent online.

60

A few years ago, an entrepreneur asked, which track is better, coffee or tea? Choose the one you like and can do well.

Author: Shaokang loves brain burning

Source: Shaokang Blake (ID: shaokang92)